


such an almighty sound

by jamesstruttingpotter



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Life As We Know It AU... kinda?, kidfic u guys!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24842278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesstruttingpotter/pseuds/jamesstruttingpotter
Summary: The only words that reached her through the haze had been "car accident"; after that, it’d been easier to tune everything out as white noise.Bellamy hadn’t moved the whole time. When Clarke had pressed a tentative hand against his shoulder, he’d reached up to grab it, grip tight enough to hurt.“Octavia,” he’d gasped, and she’d pulled him into an embrace before she knew what was happening.“Evie,” she replied, shaking. A fine tremor had felt like it was passing from her body to his. “We need to find Evie.”
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 126





	such an almighty sound

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact, I've been working on some version of this AU for literal YEARS, and only managed to finish it by completely deleting the original draft and starting all over again. Vaguely inspired by the movie Life As We Know It, in that I took the premise and then kind of ignored everything else about it.
> 
> As always, I haven't watched past like S3, but hopefully that doesn't matter! Title from Florence and the Machine’s “Drumming Song.”

It’s 3:47 in the morning, Clarke’s got a finicky client coming into the gallery at 8:30, and Evie won’t stop crying.

She rolls over to the cooler side of the mattress and contemplates turning off the baby monitor for half a guilt-ridden second before flopping onto her back and scrubbing a hand down her face. Then she hauls herself out of bed and pads over to the nursery, pushing the half-ajar door fully open.

Bellamy’s already in there, has been since the first cry sounded, and he looks just as exhausted as she feels. Still, he’s got Evie in his arms and is rocking her gently, a raspy rendition of Billie Holiday escaping his mouth. 

“Try some Norah Jones,” Clarke suggests, leaning against the doorframe, and he doesn’t look up. But the tune shifts to follow her direction, and Evie gradually settles, fitful but silent.

“How’d you figure that one out?” he whispers, once she’s fully dropped off. 

Clarke shrugs. “Desperation, mostly.”

He looks almost awake enough to chuckle. Instead, he gets up from the armchair to put Evie back in her crib, nice and easy. They both hold their breath until she’s down, still asleep, after which he tiptoes out. Clarke eases the door shut behind them.

The hallway’s dark. “Thanks,” she says, and he shrugs.

“I know you’ve got your thing tomorrow morning. It’s on the  _ calendar. _ ” A flash of white teeth.

“It’s a very helpful tool,” she shoots back, and this time he really does laugh, soft in the gloom.

“Have a good night,” he says.

“Yeah, you too,” she says, and watches him slip down to his makeshift bedroom before she turns back to her own.

*

It had been pure luck that Clarke had gotten the call. She’d been just stepping out of a shower, fingers rubbing at a knot in her neck that refused to dissipate, when she’d realized that her ringtone had been playing for quite a while. She’d scrambled for where it sat on her countertop and an unfamiliar voice had been on the other line.

“Lincoln, hi. Are you on your way to the gallery?” she’d asked, fumbling for a towel.

_ “Hello, this is Arkadia General. We’re calling because you’re the emergency contact on this man’s phone.” _

Thirty minutes later she’d left her car idling on the curb and run in to see a woman in scrubs standing by a slumped figure in a hard plastic chair, and she’d known. Devastating certainty had made her blood run cold, even as she rushed forward to speak to the doctor. The only words that reached her through the haze had been  _ car accident;  _ after that, it’d been easier to tune everything out as white noise.

Bellamy hadn’t moved the whole time. When Clarke had pressed a tentative hand against his shoulder, he’d reached up to grab it, grip tight enough to hurt.

“Octavia,” he’d gasped, and she’d pulled him into an embrace before she knew what was happening. 

“Evie,” she replied, shaking. A fine tremor had felt like it was passing from her body to his. “We need to find Evie.”

It had taken less than a couple hours to find her in Child Protective Services’ care, and then less than a few weeks to finalize custody arrangements. The will had left Evie in their care, as Octavia’s brother and Lincoln’s best friend and business partner. The lawyer had even ventured a small smile as she explained that the house had been fully owned and would pass to Bellamy as well, as if they hadn’t sat in this very dining room half a year ago, champagne in hand to celebrate the couple’s well-earned freedom from their mortgage. Lincoln had mediated yet another one of their half-drunk arguments about God knows what while Raven and Octavia laughed at them from where they were watching some shitty TLC show.

“That should make living arrangements a little easier, at least,” the lawyer had said, and Clarke had watched Bellamy’s knuckles whiten beneath the table.

Now it’s month four of living in Lincoln and Octavia’s house, Bellamy set up in their living room while Clarke takes the guest room. It’s month four of watching Evie like some never-ending babysitting gig, half an eye still keeping watch over her shoulder as if expecting Lincoln to reach over and read the Gerber nutritional label, as if expecting Octavia to appear with a wet napkin to wipe down her daughter’s face. It’s month four of owning the gallery alone, of managing clients without her partner, of scheduling showings and meetings around Bellamy’s work and daycare pick-up times, of pretending that it had always been the plan to lose her friends too fucking early and gain custody of their daughter with a man she had, before, only barely tolerated.

“Clarke,” says that man now, rummaging around Lincoln and Octavia’s fridge. Lincoln and Octavia’s daughter is on his hip. “Stir fry tonight?”

She blinks, slow, and watches her hands spread wide on Lincoln and Octavia’s kitchen countertop. “Yeah, alright,” she says, and Bellamy nods.

*

“It’s on the  _ calendar _ ,” Clarke says, and she is  _ not _ yelling. She’s just - speaking at an elevated volume. There’s a couple Post-Its sticking to the sleeve of her shirt, and the amusement on his face as his eyes flick over them does not help to improve her mood. “I told you about this a few days ago, and it’s been on the fucking calendar for a week, Bellamy, you can’t just -”

“Alright,” he says, holding up his hands. He’s almost laughing. “Alright, Jesus, it was just an idea. I’ll tell her I’m not free til this weekend.”

The sudden capitulation has her feeling distinctly wrong-footed. She blinks. “Okay,” she says, a little unsteady. “Okay, good.”

“You really think I care about a Tinder date that much?” he asks her, sliding past to where Evie sits on her playmat, throwing blocks across the room. He picks her up and bounces her once, twice, to squeals of delight. “I’d much rather spend time with my niece, anyway - isn’t that right, Evie?”

Clarke leans against the credenza and crosses her arms. There’s a funny clenching feeling happening in her chest, as if a fist has taken hold of her heart. It’s probably from the way Evie’s little fingers grab at Bellamy’s hair, right? “I didn’t realize it was a date,” she says.

He tosses a shrug her way without looking at her. “It’s okay, you had yours scheduled first.”

She frowns. “It’s not a date. It’s just Wells.”

He bounces Evie again, one hand spanning the whole width of her little back. “Alright.”

“Bellamy,” she huffs, and she’s not sure what’s driving the curious irritation in her voice, the strange need to make him understand what she’s trying to say. “It’s Wells. We’ve known each other since we were Evie’s age. If something was going to happen, it would’ve happened a long time ago. Besides which, I’m pretty sure he’s half in love with Raven.”

He’s still not looking at her, but something in the set of his shoulders seems to loosen. “That’s hilarious,” he says. “Raven’ll eat him alive.”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.” She watches a familiar look cross Evie’s face and hurries forward, grabbing her bib off the highchair as she goes - but she’s too late, and spit up splatters all over Bellamy’s shirt.

He sighs. “Good job, sweetheart,” he says, not even a little sarcastic, and Clarke’s laughing as she takes her from his arms.

“Get a new shirt on,” she tells him, and resolutely doesn’t watch him shuck off his ruined one as he goes. 

A few days later, she walks straight from her gallery to the tiny, shitty bar they’ve all adopted. Wells is already inside with her drink of choice waiting for her, tie loosened around his neck and an easy grin on his face. She slides onto the barstool beside him and he immediately regales her with gossip from the campaign team he’s managing before asking for the latest pictures of Evie. She’s only got a million on her phone, and he makes some truly soppy faces at a video of Evie smushing mashed carrots onto her cheeks until Clarke laughs at him.

“Just have one of your own,” she finally says, and he puts a hand to his chest.

“Is that just to remind me how long I’ve been single? I’m wounded.”

“Hey, once you get up enough courage you can make your attempt.”

Wells rolls his beer bottle between his palms, smile softening. “We’ll see,” he says, and she snorts. He raises an eyebrow at her. “I’m not sure you want to be pushing this particular issue, Griffin. You might start looking hypocritical.”

Clarke opens her mouth, closes it, then downs half her drink. “What are you talking about,” she says, flat, and he scoffs.

“Come on. You and Blake?”

“No.” Clarke holds up a hand. “Have you forgotten the way we met? The  _ worst _ blind date I’ve ever been on - no, wait, potentially the worst  _ date _ , period.”

Wells waves this aside. “That was five years ago,” he says. “I’ll be the first to tell you he was a bit of a douchebag back then, but you really think the rest of us would be friends with him if he was still like that?”

“I don’t know, you have questionable taste in friends.”

“Plus you’ve loosened up a lot, too.”

_ “Hey.” _

“Clarke.”

“What?” She tamps down on the urge to finish off her drink. “There’s nothing going on, okay? He’s got a date this weekend.”

“And I’m sure you’re perfectly fine with that.” He nudges her elbow with his own. “Come on.”

“It was a disaster then and it’d be a disaster now. He showed up  _ two hours late! _ And then made it  _ very _ clear he only wanted to get laid.”

“Again, that was half a decade ago. And before, you know -”

“What? Before what?”

“Well, you guys are practically - I mean, you have a  _ kid _ together, Clarke.”

“And you think that’s a reason to start dating?” she snaps, and Wells leans back, surprised. “Jesus, Wells, this isn’t like - we’re not college freshmen looking for a good time. We’re all that she’s got. For better or for worse, Lincoln and Octavia trusted us with her. And I can’t just - throw that all away on the off chance that things work out with him and me. What would that even mean? Us getting married? Living happily ever after? What happens if we try and it ends up a trainwreck? Evie loses another parent?” She can’t meet his eyes. “I’m not doing that to her.”

Wells is quiet for another minute. “You’ve thought about this,” he says finally, and it’s not a question.

She exhales, noisy. “Yeah,” she replies, before flagging down the bartender. “Yeah, I have.”

When she eventually gets back to Lincoln and Octavia’s house, she has to try three times before the key fits into the lock. Before she can turn the tumblers, the door’s swinging open. She squints up to see Bellamy standing there with an amused expression on his face. “Had a good time?” he asks her rhetorically, and she doesn’t stop herself from falling forward into the broad expanse of his chest. “Whoa, hey. You alright?”

“Hi,” she says. He smells really good. Is he wearing a shirt? “Evie?”

“Asleep, for now. What happened to you?”

“Dropship,” she mutters, and he makes a soft  _ ah _ of comprehension. “Water?”

“You’re the only responsible drunk I know,” he says, and half-carries her into the kitchen. The lights are bright and sharp against the stainless steel appliances and she slumps into a seat at the counter. A big glass of water enters her vision shortly. 

“You,” she starts, before taking a big gulp.

“What?”

“You know you.”

“Uh… yeah, I guess. As much as it’s possible for one to know oneself.”

“Shut up. You’re a responsible drunk.”

“Okay.” His hand is warm under her chin. It’s startlingly easy to concentrate on his eyes. “You want me to find some Advil?”

She shakes her head before letting it rest against his shoulder. “Gonna go to bed,” she mumbles. His skin is hot against her temple. “Bellamy?”

“What?”

“Are we good?”

“What?”

“Are we - you know, friends?” She’s tipsy enough to ask the question but not enough to look at him while he answers, and the silence that greets her for the first few seconds is nearly enough to make her lose her nerve.

“Yeah, Clarke,” he replies, and his voice is a low rumble in his chest. She thinks his hand is resting on the curve of her shoulder blade. “We’re friends.”

“Okay,” she says, and straightens up to finish her water.

*

Evie is beautiful. Clarke knows she’s biased, but she really is. She’s inherited Octavia’s big green eyes and Lincoln’s half-smile, and Clarke swears there’s something about the way she laughs that sounds like Bellamy. Even now, when she’s screaming bloody murder at 1 in the morning, her cheeks going dark red from how hard she’s crying, Clarke can’t help but marvel at the fact that she’s alive, here, with them. Still breathing, lungs pumping air and sound.

“Shh, Evie,” she murmurs, patting a hand against her small back. They’re in Clarke’s bedroom - Lincoln and Octavia’s guest room - in an attempt to keep her cries from echoing down the stairs to the living room where Bellamy still sleeps stubbornly on the couch, refusing to even take turns with her. Clarke paces slow and steady along the perimeter of the room. The low green glow of the alarm clock is the only light in the room. 

Evie shudders as she breathes in, almost tuckered out, then shrieks directly into Clarke’s ear. “Good God,” she mutters, before sitting on the edge of the bed. “Evie, aren’t you tired? I know I am.”

It’s been a long week. An annual event at the gallery that they’ve handled for three years before is suddenly proving to be a nightmare. It’s a showcase with the local university and it’s been relatively easy to handle in the past, but she’s now painfully aware that this is the first time she’s tackling it alone. Lincoln had been the main liaison between their gallery and the university art department, and now she’s quickly learning just how much the professors like to micromanage. She hadn’t been able to muster up the grit to tell them why she was alone this year, and she’d paid for it earlier today when she’d nearly lost her temper at a woman who remarked that their “previous contact had been much better at handling these logistics,” and had demanded to work with him instead.

Clarke had taken a few deep breaths and crammed back the words crowding her throat; then, sitting in the university parking lot hours later, had let herself cry for half an hour in the relative privacy of her car.

“Alright,” she says now in the dark. Evie’s small body is a warm, heavy weight. “Let it all out.”

She runs a hand up and down her back, slow. Evie’s breathing eventually evens out as her cries quiet, and Clarke takes this as a sign to start humming some Whitney Houston.  _ I Will Always Love You _ manages to do the trick, and soon enough, Evie’s got her face resting in the crook of Clarke’s neck, mostly quiet.

She eases off the humming and gently lowers herself down to the mattress, suddenly bone-tired. Her limbs feel heavy, weighed down; Evie’s warmth is soaking into her chest. Still, she manages to turn her head to the side to look at the door when it creaks open.

“Clarke,” Bellamy says, and she wonders fleetingly when the last time he called her  _ princess _ was. “You haven’t slept properly in days.” 

“Neither have you,” she croaks.

He shifts in place, an uncharacteristic show of uncertainty. “Let me help you,” he says.

Her eyes, abruptly, ache from how tired she is. The prospect of spending even one hour truly asleep is too tempting to ignore. 

She reaches over to pat the opposite side of her bed. “Get in,” she says, and hopes it’s brusque enough to cover any nerves that might betray her.

He slides into her bed with a groan and immediately rolls onto his side to keep a hand on Evie’s back. She snuffles and presses her little face deeper into Clarke’s neck, but doesn’t otherwise protest. “Sleep,” he says, quiet, and Clarke can’t tell who he’s talking to. Unconsciousness is already tugging at her, exacerbated by the warmth of his body as he lies inches away. She breathes in, once, and passes out.

When she wakes up the next morning both he and Evie are gone, and a text blinks up at her when she checks her phone.  _ Taking her to daycare, coffee in the pot, _ it says, apparently sent at 7:49am. Then, delivered 26 minutes later, like it took some time for him to decide whether or not to actually send it:  _ You looked tired. Hope you’re not working yourself too hard _ .

She bites her lip, thumbs hovering over the keyboard.  _ You’re the best, _ she types eventually. 

It feels like he’s excavated some great and terrible truth from her chest. She puts her phone down and gets up to shower.

*

The worst part about the whole thing is how easy it is to fuck up.

It’s been another hectic day, Clarke tied up at the gallery and Bellamy weathering the storm that is AP testing at the high school, and it’s almost eleven at night when Evie finally goes down. She’s now sitting on the couch with a well-earned glass of wine on the coffee table in front of her, Bellamy a comforting presence next to her as  _ Planet Earth _ plays quietly in front of them. She’s trying to ignore just how easy it’d be to rest her head against his shoulder as they argue about which penguin is the cutest.

“It’s obviously Benny,” he says with an air of finality, and she nearly chokes on her laughter. 

“Benny?” she echoes. “You named the penguin  _ Benny?” _

“I call ‘em like I see ‘em, and he looks like a Benny.”

“In what universe does a penguin ever look like a Benny?”

“In  _ every _ universe, Clarke,” he says, grinning down at her, and maybe it’s the shape of his mouth when he says her name, maybe it’s the warm press of his bicep as it rests along the back of her neck, maybe it’s that he’s never looked more beautiful than he does now, laugh lines around his eyes and fucking  _ Benny _ honking on the flickering screen in front of them. Maybe it’s a hundred, thousand, million reasons, but she’s thinking of none of them when she leans up to fit her mouth against his.

His response is immediate, lips firm and eager on her own. She grips at the broad expanse of his shoulders, his thin t-shirt twisting between her fingers. Her hair slides free from behind her ear to tickle his cheek and he slides one hand across her jaw to push it back, his other finding the bare strip of skin between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her shorts. His palms are hot where they lie on her waist, her cheek. 

She pushes him backwards, still kissing, until he’s lying almost flat, her half-sprawled over his torso. His tongue slides against hers and she shivers, every neuron firing, every nerve ending alive. Her heartbeat’s thundering, threatening to beat right out of her chest, and her knee is digging into something plastic and sharp.  _ The remote, _ she thinks distantly. Then,  _ Lincoln and Octavia’s remote _ .

Suddenly, she jerks back and away. Her fingers fly to her mouth. It feels swollen, bruised; the expression on his face fractures into a million unidentifiable pieces.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and she scrambles up onto her feet. She can’t look at him, not when Evie’s upstairs and she can still feel his handprints on her skin. 

“Fuck,” she repeats, and heads to the kitchen. 

He follows her like she knew he would. The long line of his body leans against the counter, as far from her as he can get without leaving the room entirely. She takes a seat at the island; when she looks up at him, his curls are a riotous mess, and the knowledge that she’s the one who did that has her nearly trembling before she buries her face in her hands.

“What the fuck are we doing?” she demands, and it’s almost muffled. Bellamy, still facing away from her, says nothing. “Are we just playing house? Are we just sitting in their house with their daughter, going to work and picking her up from school like nothing’s wrong, like she’s ours? Bellamy, what - “

“I don’t know,” he snaps. She looks up, already glaring. “I don’t know,” he repeats, softer. “I look at you and I - fuck, I  _ want _ you,” he goes on, half-wrecked, and she has to pretend the admission doesn’t send a bolt of lightning down her spine. “But I look at Evie and I want more than anything for her to have a mom and dad. And I don’t know if the two are related, or maybe even the same thing, or if I just miss Octavia so much that it physically aches. Lincoln too,” he adds finally, and that nearly makes a reluctant laugh escape her mouth. 

“We can’t fuck this up,” she says instead. “We can’t do that to Evie.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I don’t know either,” she admits, and he finally turns to look at her. “But… we have to be sure. For her sake.”

His expression is impossible to read. “Yeah,” he says. “We have to be sure.”

She lies awake that night, reliving the weight of his mouth on hers, the warm press of his chest against her own. When Evie cries, she heads to the nursery and rocks her, rocks her for long after she falls back asleep.

The next few days prove that if the worst thing was how easy it was to fuck up, the second worst thing is how easy it is to go back after they do. The morning afterwards is a little nerve wracking, Clarke unsure of her reception once she comes downstairs, but the smile he gives her is genuine, if a little strained. Then Evie throws her Cheerios on the floor and burbles out a laugh, and her self-consciousness flies out the window as she crawls around trying to find each one. Bellamy goes to find a vacuum, and it’s just like before: they’re a team first and foremost, and she knows they’d both rather die than do anything to compromise Evie’s wellbeing. So it’s easy, and right, and goddamn  _ natural _ , and Clarke takes the coffee he hands her every morning before work with a smile instead of a kiss. She watches him sing to Evie and make them dinner and rub sleep-stained fingers into the corners of his eyes in morning sunlight, and she bites down on the swell of emotion it inspires in her over and over again until she goes to bed, exhausted and resigned. She traces the shape of his smile in the space between waking and sleeping and doesn’t let herself think of  _ someday. _

*

It’s a sticky summer Saturday when Raven swings by with wine in one hand and a new picture book in the other, ostensibly “in the neighborhood for a quick visit” but probably staying for dinner and Evie’s bathtime. She sits with Evie on the kitchen floor while Clarke tries to put together some sandwiches for lunch, swatting Bellamy’s hands away when he tries to commandeer the ingredients.  _ He’s standing too close, _ Clarke thinks, then wonders if she’d be thinking that if they hadn’t kissed. A hot rush of blood stains her cheeks and she finally lets him take the mayonnaise from her; Raven’s sharp gaze on her face lets her know that the other woman isn’t missing a thing.

“Mustard?” Bellamy asks, and Raven scrunches her nose.

“Who the fuck puts mayo and mustard together on a sandwich?”

Clarke sighs. “Can we at least try -” she starts, but Raven’s already clapped a hand over her mouth with an apologetic glance at Evie.

Bellamy puts the last plate down in front of Clarke and pulls out his cell phone from his pocket, scrolling through the screen. “Monty and Miller for dinner, too?” he asks, and Evie’s shrieked  _ “Mill!” _ seals the deal. Her excited yelling sends him to the back porch to make the call, the patio door sliding shut behind him. Raven raises an eyebrow at Clarke, who busies herself with a bite of her sandwich rather than meeting her gaze. 

“Is it good?” she asks, and Clarke nods. “He even left out the tomatoes for you, Christ. You two are hopeless.”

Clarke chews carefully and then swallows, because her mother at least taught her good manners before cutting her out of her life. “Tomatoes are disgusting.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely the point I was trying to make.” Raven tears off a bit of her crust to offer Evie, who shrieks again with glee. “You wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“So there’s something to talk about.”

She glares down at her sandwich. It is, indeed, tomato-free, and this sends a pathetic little flood of warmth through her chest. “No.”

There’s a suspicious silence; when she looks up, Raven’s got a thoughtful look on her face that’s almost worse than the calculating one she’d been expecting. “Okay,” she says. “Hey, think you can put together a quick sketch for the game I’m coding? It doesn’t have to be much, just a logo or something. I think my professor thinks we’re getting art degrees rather than compsci ones. I’ll pay you, obviously.”

Privately, Clarke’s pretty sure Raven’s single-handedly terrified all her grad school professors so much that the only thing they can think to critique her on is her, admittedly, terrible graphic design skills. “You’re not paying me,” she says instead. “Want to do some mock-ups right now?”

The afternoon passes like this, Evie’s constant quest to steal Clarke’s tablet notwithstanding, and then Monty and Miller show up with more alcohol and a stuffed bunny. They order Chinese food and eat it in the backyard, the sky still light as the hours tick closer to eight, then nine. Evie’s passed around the table like a good luck charm, at first babbling to Raven and Monty as she drools all over her new toy, then settling into Miller’s arms more heavily as she starts to get sleepy. Her eyes close as Clarke pours a second glass of wine, and her little fingers ball up into fists where they rest on her chest.

“Octavia used to do that,” Bellamy says suddenly, and Clarke nearly loses her grip on her glass. He must suddenly lose his nerve as four gazes flick to his face; he tilts back in his seat to stare at the clouds overhead, a soft,  _ almost _ bitter look overtaking him. “I just mean - Octavia made little fists in her sleep too.”

Clarke’s mouth is suddenly dry. Her mind is blank, devoid of words.

“It was a sign,” says Miller, voice steady. “Foreshadowed how much she liked getting into bar fights.”

Bellamy lets out a short laugh, like a dam breaking, and Clarke’s chest seizes once before loosening at the sound. “God, what a brat,” he says, shaking his head. His knuckles, white round his beer bottle, ease up. “The number of times I got hit because of her, Jesus.”

“Okay, it was literally just  _ twice _ ,” Raven interjects, corner of her mouth tucked up into a smile. “Drama queen.” 

“Twice that we know of,” Bellamy counters. “I’m sure she got into plenty of trouble on her own in college.”

“Maybe Lincoln’s genes will keep Evie out of similar trouble,” says Monty.

Clarke smiles and wonders what the pain she’s been carrying for eight months has become. It’s still there, lodged behind her sternum every time she inhales, but it feels less jagged than before, as if time has worn it down until its edges are smooth enough to touch. “Yeah, Lincoln the peacemaker,” she says. “And Octavia the warrior. God, remember how quickly they got engaged? I’d never seen him like that before.”

“It was too quick,” Bellamy grumbles, like always, and Raven laughs. “But I guess when you know, you know.”

Clarke watches the rise and fall of Evie’s chest, the swell of her cheek as it curves away from her tiny mouth. “I guess so,” she says.

Later, once the takeout containers have been cleaned up and Monty has sobered up enough to drive himself and Miller home, Raven lingers in the living room.

“What?” Clarke asks. Evie’s head is a warm, sleepy weight on her shoulder. 

“This room looks… exactly the same,” Raven says, and Bellamy tenses almost imperceptibly.

“So?”

Raven bites the inside of her cheek. “Do you even like this stuff?” she asks, not unkindly. “Is anything in here yours?”

“It’s not -“ Clarke starts, then stops.  _ It’s not our house, _ she’d been about to say, before remembering a dry lawyer’s voice and a will executed too early.

“I miss them too,” says Raven, and Bellamy is still standing stiff and aloof by the couch. “But this isn’t… living in a time capsule isn’t going to bring them back.”

Clarke exhales and thinks about Bellamy’s expression as he’d said his sister’s name, the curious, broken joy of it. 

“She’s right,” he says hours later, and it looks like he’s making a concentrated effort to meet her gaze. “Raven’s right. This… we’ve been tiptoeing around like they’re coming home any minute. And they’re not. They’re not, Clarke.”

She runs a hand over the smooth suede of the couch cushions. “I know,” she says quietly.

“It’s been six months. Nearly seven. And - I’m tired of sleeping down here,” he tries, and she huffs out a surprised laugh. 

“So… what do you want to do?”

“I still have my stuff in storage,” he says. “I can -  _ we  _ can start bringing it in, I guess. Whatever we want. This is…” His voice wavers for a second, but holds firm. “We have to make this ours now.”

Clarke feels like she’s trembling all over. “Okay,” she says. It feels less shitty than she thought it would. She resolutely pushes away the guilt that threatens to choke her at this realization.

“Are you good with that?” he asks her. “I’m not going to do this without you.”

She reaches across to grasp his hand in hers. “I’m with you,” she tells him, and he holds on tight.

*

It’s fall when Evie gets sick, and Clarke is nearly crying when she turns on the master bedroom lights. Bellamy, only half-asleep with the baby monitor on full volume next to him, jerks upright.

“She’s over 101 degrees,” she says, and Bellamy’s already scrambling to his feet and into the nursery. Evie erupts into fresh tears at the sight of her uncle stretching out to pick her up.

Bellamy ignores the thermometer Clarke had tossed aside and instead places his lips on Evie’s forehead, damp with sweat. “It’s not too bad,” he murmurs. He looks at Clarke over his shoulder. “Can you get a bowl of room temperature water and some washcloths?”

She rushes into the bathroom across the hall, and Bellamy’s got Evie undressed and on the changing table by the time she’s back. “Have we got baby aspirin?” he asks her, and she nods. “Okay. We’ll give that to her if this doesn’t work. Let’s start wiping her down.”

The water’s barely cool against her fingers. She wrings out a washcloth and hands it to Bellamy. Panic, which had been a live, writhing thing in her stomach just minutes prior, settles at the soothing noises he’s making in the back of his throat as he runs the cloth down Evie’s chest and back. 

She forgets, sometimes, that Bellamy already has hard-won experience raising a child who isn’t his. It comes out when she least expects it, like when he scatters Evie’s Cheerios all over the kitchen table because she’ll likely eat more of them if she’s having fun finding them, or when he changes a diaper in less than two minutes while also on a conference call with his students’ parents. Clarke remembers feeling a heady mix of resentment and envy at first, back when this had all first started, underneath the crushing weight of guilt. It had been  _ hard _ to settle into raising a kid, damn near impossible when she was struggling to keep the gallery afloat and wading through grief at the same time, and it had felt like she was fucking up constantly while he glided through without breaking a sweat. To have raised Octavia since he was a child himself, and now to raise Octavia’s child because she was gone - it was cruel, unjust. She had known this and resented him for his grace in handling it anyway.

But right now, when Bellamy’s voice is a low, comforting rumble in her ears, when Evie’s desperate cries soften to miserable hiccups as her body starts to cool off, Clarke can’t feel anything but bone-deep gratitude. The silhouette of his face is so incredibly dear to her in this moment, half-lit from moonlight as it streams in through the window, and she lets her hands rest in the bowl of water before her as she watches him soothe his niece, movements assured and confident. “There we go,” he murmurs, and Evie grabs for his fingers with a whimper. “It’s alright, sweetheart. We’ll get you to bed.”

“Do you… want me to take her?” she ventures, and it feels like she’s intruding. 

But he nods, shoulders slumping downward as he sets aside the wet washcloths, and Evie’s familiar sweet smell surrounds her as she picks her up. The weight of her in her arms is familiar too, nearly second nature, and Clarke sways with her back and forth. Evie’s hands tangle in her hair, little fists.

“She loves you,” Bellamy says, and Clarke jerks around to face him. His brow scrunches at her surprise. “What?”

“She shouldn’t,” Clarke says, the words escaping before she can stop them, and she hastens to explain herself. “I just mean - you’re her uncle, you know? You’re her family. I’m just -“

“Her aunt,” he says firmly. “You’re her aunt, and she loves you.” Something shifts behind his eyes. “Unless -“

_ “No,” _ she interrupts, horrified. She clutches Evie closer. “God, Bellamy, no. I love her. I didn’t mean -“

He looks stricken too. “I know, I’m sorry,” he says. He leans back against the changing table, as if his legs have lost their strength. “Jesus, Clarke, I didn’t mean it.”

She bounces Evie up and down a couple more times, gentle. She can feel drool pooling on her shoulder. “Okay,” she says. It feels like putting down a heavy weight. “Let me put her back in her crib.”

She goes easy, cheeks still a little flushed. “I’ll stay to keep an eye on her,” Bellamy whispers, and Clarke turns to see him looking at Evie, the jut of his jaw fierce and aching.

It’s very late. The nursery is cloaked in silence, a velvet darkness softening every edge. She reaches up to smooth a palm against his face, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. She kisses him, and his hands are still a little damp where they encircle her waist.

“Okay,” she says once she lets him go. Evie’s breathing is deep beside them.

*

“I’m sure,” he announces the next morning, bedraggled and exhausted, dark circles under his eyes. Evie is sitting in her highchair, still grumpy but no longer feverish, and Clarke’s got sweet potato purée smeared on her t-shirt. The way his eyes alight on hers has her every nerve ending singing. 

There are a couple photos of the three of them hanging off the fridge. The table she’s sitting at used to live in his apartment a year ago. Last week, she’d bought the red rug that now lies in front of their sink.

“Me too,” she says, and is startled by how easily the words leave her mouth. “Me too,” she repeats, and it feels like they’re home.


End file.
